How important is being original for a Startup

Published on Sunday, 13 January 2008.

Lately, I find myself asking why would anyone want to duplicate, copy, or imitate an existing startup; to form their own startup. So far, I think it could be summarized as just one reason:

Easy Money.

Easy money, or easy success, or easy "something". Due to world segmentation, one spectacular original idea might not reach every part of the world simultaneously. Besides, there's always the language barrier. So present the same idea, service, or product localized, and you have considerable hopes of achieving the same success in your location, city, country, etc., right?

Of course, doing any kind of startup as your first one, will give you a lot of experience so it will have, whether you success or fail at it, positive effects.

However, originality is one of the constant traits in successful startups. If you're the kind of person who has mastered the art of learning from other person's mistakes and success then, why would you ever want to invest your time in an already beated to death idea?

Working on something that nobody has ever done before, something that could change the status quo for some context, something that solves a current problem, something original; is not work at all. It is passion. And passion is one of the essential driving forces of startups.

It baffles me seeing a lot of job offers where the job is to clone a site. From my freelance web developer perspective, it's a bit dissapointing. Fortunately, almost everybody can start a startup. I know I can. Just waiting for the right idea. An original idea, that is.

References

Things that make me laugh, and sometimes cry: Exposed: The 7 Most Blatant Web 2.0 Rip Offs Web 2.0 in Germany: Copy/Paste Innovation or more? Cloning Web 2.0: A Look at Copycat Applications Making a Copycat Site? At Least Copy an Idea That's Working Copycats: Top 10 International Facebook Clones